Basically just what the title says. I think a tougher fight would be nice as it makes the player make a risk/reward decision that would add an element of excitement into echoes (could maybe boost the drops along with the difficulty?)
Also, I think it would be cool if they had unique names (pulled from a random list or something)
I havenāt played the content yet and donāt plan to any time soon, but I assumed the way this was advertised that some of these would be boss-strength enemies. If theyāre not, thatās a little disappointing.
I ran into one and died with my lvl 28 Beastmaster, and it took a long time to kill him. This character destroyed everything else and of course at lvl 28 āwasā deathless. My higher level toons donāt deem to have much trouble with him though.
They are about the same level as the Monolith objective boss.
I think if they were harder, it would be kinda weird.
The items they drop are extremely limited/niche. Right now its worth killing them because you can sometimes find coolstuff.
But I think if they became āomg t4 julra just spawned in my echoā everyone would just skip them. Which is the opposite of what they were added for.
The really weird thing about them is that they (feel) way tougher in the campaign, than they do in Monoliths. And, Iām saying this as a newly rolled character who entered monoliths at lvl 42. Fighting them, all the way during the campaign, they were a moderate challenge, and took a decent time to kill. However, once I entered the Monoliths (under-leveled by around 15 levels), they were a cake walk, and died by my 3rd cast.
Something feels off about themā¦ in Monoliths at least.
edit: my gear hasnāt changed in 15 levels, so itās not that my power suddenly increased when I started Monoliths due to gear power increase
But they also drop in the campaign, and Iām not sure what their level is for that but my level 28 BM who was destroying everything else had a very hard time with the EM he ran across. It was my first experience with an EM.
Granted, he wasnāt T4 Julra, but he was extremely more difficult than anything else on that level.
I agree with this. I was starting to pound my head against the Majasa brick wall at 53ish and then rememberedā¦ wait a minute, I donāt have to do this. Then in monoliths the first one I ran into I think I just obliterated. No fight no drops
I have the same feeling than DirePenguin and Esiliumultra : exiled mage seems easier in early monoliths than in campaign, even if I didnt update my gear in a while.
That said, now I start to justā¦ skip them. The reward in the early monoliths is not worth it (or at least itās my impression). Experimental affixes under T4 is worthless since you canāt salvage it and crit-craft is not reliable enough. So my reflex is : meh, iāll come back to those in empowered mono. Which is a shame in my opinion, itās another mechanic thatās intuitively pushed to the deep end game, instead of enriching mid game. But maybe iām wrong and itās a false impression.
Yeah, I find them underwhelming as well. I wish they would drop with ONLY the experimental affix (T1-2 for campaign, T2-4 for regular monos and T5-7 for empowered), and with a corresponding amount of FP for crafting. I feel like they are mostly not worth even picking up due to the low tier being unable to raise, as well as having a bunch of other affixes I dont want to bother āfixingā just to get a T1 experiemental.
At least if I have more flexibility to craft the rest of the item, the experimental affix would be more enticing to play around with. Also, most of the ones Iāve seen have been prefixes, and they are more like suffix mods, on the power scale. And not worth losing out on the T3+ dmg prefix I would normally be using.
They are okay even at lower tiers if the stat is powerful for you. like the new ward per second from missing hp on gloves is fairly good even at t1-2 if the other stats on the item happen to be okay.
The main problem is almost all of the affixes are niche/QoL at best.
All the boot mods interact with granting you speed type modifiers or movement, they are good but fairly niche. a lot of builds get haste, getting it from boots is good for the builds that dont, and a dead stat for those that do. Same with frenzy. The minion teleport one is fantastic as having to resummon a mage before was annoying and point heavy. But it also is very niche.
All the belt mods are potion, I sleep. Zombie one might be good, will test when I drop the new zombie ring.
The glove mods are all defense augmenting mechanics, playing with endurance, ward gen, or armor buffs in interesting ways. These seem to be the only pool worth chasing after. Tbh after just one day ive stopped looking at belts unless its exalted, its just not gonna have a stat that is valuable to me 99% of the time.
That being said, if they widen the pool of affixes as they iterate on the game, it can become a really cool system. its just really shallow right now.
Yeah, I wasnāt saying they werenāt interesting. But none of the ones Iāve had drop have been worth āfixingā the unneeded affixes on the itemā¦ or my willingness to lose a āgoodā affix for a T1 experimental. My point was if there was more flexibility with them, from the get-go, they might be more attractive to play with, over all. Dropping with only experimental affix, would make them easier to work with. And kind of fit the theme of an experimental itemā¦
I mean maybe not in terms of like their health bar, but just how easily they can kill you, or what you have to do in order not to be killed. Maybe like a monolith boss but a third as long. I wouldnāt find that weird at all; thatās actually a thing in other games. There are lots of challenge bosses in Grim Dawn, though those end up effectively being harder than the bosses in the main campaign. Thatās too extreme though, I think making them like a boss that just doesnāt last as long would be acceptable.
I would prefer them not to be tougher, they are slippery enough as it is, as they keep dashing out of my AoE DoTs.
If there must be some difficulty to exiled mages, it should come in the form of more powerful variants that are indicated by the containment prism itself. Or packs of more than one.
Yeah good point! I didnāt start a new campaign or anything with this update so Iāve only seen them in the monolith.
He is also easy in the campaign, when you play Necromancer
Chipping into what seems to be a concensus from everyoneā¦
Havent tried Exiled Mages in the Campaign but in 400+ odd corruption echos, my FG/MA one hits it and I had to run around not attacking just to āseeā the new feature.
Imho, definitely needs some dynamic difficulty scaling to make it a worthwhile challenge.
Would love to see your build. My FG with MA and FW take it down easy enough, but definitely not by one-shotting it.
iām not near my gaming setup right now but its an offline build so its easy to upload it to dammitts build planner later and drop the linkā¦
Here you go:
If you switch to Actual on the planner you will see my real items/stats. It did take a damn long time to farm for that MAW.
MA for crit based dps (my char itself actually does bugger all damage to enemies - only applies debuffs really). Shield Throw to tag the MA for Manifest Inspiration and a little armour and debuffs. Javelin & Smite for auto healing of both char & MA, movement and additional ways to proc debuffs and get a little additional defence. Sigils, well, because I like the self inflicted frustration of keeping them up. 
Originally based on Kryces MA build from years ago. Could be tweaked in many ways to make it work depending on your playstyle or get a little more dps here or defence there and you can definitely change Javeline/Smite/Sigils to any other combination if you wanted. It can also be played entirely via Void Cleave with Molten Blades/Scorching Path. Key is that everything dps must be for your MA not you and you must make sure the MA gets aggro and kite around out of danger tagging it so that it can clear. YOu can also change MA to Warstomp, but I found after a while, that I can keep out of the way while the MA does it thing. Easy play but requires some getting used to the idea of you not directly attacking enemies which can be a little odd and counter intuitive.
Thank you sir!